The Cost‐effectiveness of NT‐proBNP for Assessment of Suspected Acute Heart Failure in the Emergency Department

When relying on clinical assessment alone, an estimated 22% of acute heart failure (AHF) patients are missed, so clinical guidelines recommend the use of N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) for AHF diagnosis. Since publication of these guidelines, there has been poor uptake of NT‐proBNP testing in part due to concerns over excessive false positive referrals resulting from the low specificity of a single ‘rule‐out’ threshold of <300 pg/mL. Low specificity can be mitigated by the addition of age‐specific ‘rule‐in’ NT‐proBNP thresholds.